The end for Rebus?

A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin

Novel ideas from Catherine

By Catherine Williams, Vice Chairperson, St Duthac Book and Arts Festival

Ian Rankin does not disappoint in this 2023 crime thriller. Once again John Rebus is right at the heart of the book, though it’s an older, slower, inhaler sucking Rebus this time round. Choosing to begin the novel with the end so to speak, in the first chapter, titled Now, we find Rebus in court. Over the years he has been no stranger to courtrooms where sometimes he told the truth and sometimes his evidence might have been embroidered or amnesia had set in. This is the first time Rebus has stood in the dock. 


The rest of the book is titled Then, and Rankin sets up the back story with his usual aplomb. Wheelchair bound aged gangster Cafferty is still trying to be the puppet master and he has scores to settle. He employs Rebus to track down a dead man who has been spotted in Edinburgh, a ghost from the past who may be an enigma or may not be dead as everyone believed.


Cafferty claims he wants to put things right with the seemingly back from the dead man, but is he actually dragging Rebus into a spider’s web where the lies and half-truths of the past will finally catch up with the retired policeman? When a cop who is about to squeal on his bent colleagues turns up murdered in a flat previously owned by Cafferty the threads become even more tangled and threaten to implicate Rebus. Has he been set up by someone from his murky past, and how many lines will Rebus cross to save himself?

DI Siobhan Clarke is investigating the murder and trying hard to keep her distance from Rebus, while the Major Incident Team from Gartcosh becomes involved with the alleged corruption. I used to live there and at that time no-one knew where Gartcosh was!


As always with Ian Rankin books, there is a complexity of story that is often missing from so many other crime writers’ work. With a back catalogue of 24 Rebus novels, Rankin can draw from the rich cast of characters previously created allowing former colleagues, gangsters, ex-girlfriends and dodgy snitches from the past to make appearances here and there, popping up and reminding us of arms being twisted and the straight path to the truth not always being taken. 


A Heart Full of Headstones skips along with the readers’ interest always held and satisfied. Rankin has found a way to keep John Rebus going long after retirement, and I thank him for it. I thoroughly recommend this gritty book and hope for many more of Rebus in the future.

I worked for the mobile library service for 28 years, driving and staffing the mobile library that covered Evanton right up to Rosehall and all points in between. Since taking early retirement I have been involved with the St Duthac Book & Arts Festival Group, planning and producing an annual Festival in and around Tain. I am never far from books, and in the coming months myself and colleague Peter Newman will take turns reviewing a book and hopefully introducing you to authors you have not yet tried.